Lesson Plan Sequence

Focus Outcome

HSIE
ENS2.5 Describes places in the local area and other parts of Australia and explains their significance.


Overview
Students explore information about local and national areas of significance. They will achieve this through using a variety of modes and text types culminating in the creation of wiki pages.

Lesson	Description	Resource/s
1 – Introduction	Using a travel video as a stimulus, discuss and explore places of significance in Australia. In small groups of 4, students work cooperatively to write and present a factual recount.	Travel video on YouTube
2 – Significant sites and places of Australia	Introduce and discuss the term ‘site’, discuss the difference between ‘site’ and ‘place’. Compile a list of significant places and sites in Australia. Discuss why students think they are significant and whether everyone would agree. Find these sites on a map. Discuss the significance of Aboriginal sites.	Map of Australia (interactive map on SMARTboard) Detailed maps of states and territories.
3 – Multimodal texts	Students discuss the composition of websites, analysing an Australian tourism website which suggests travel routes around Australia. Students use these design elements to create a group document and presentation, of a location in Australia.	Travel website/s
4 – Scaffolding for rich task	Students are introduced to, and explore, http://www.wikispaces.com and http://www.xtranormal.com. This will scaffold their future creation of a wiki page and an animation, both rich multimodal tasks.	Computers, projector, board.
5 – Exploration of significant sites and places of Australia	Students, working in pairs, will be given a place or site in Australia that has significance (as discussed in previous lesson). The students will research their site (recording factual information such as what State/Territory it’s in, nearest city/town, nearest mountain etc) and report back to the class.	Library books, travel brochures, travel websites
6 – Written grammar	Students will look at the grammatical features found in descriptions of places in a travel brochure. Students will create their own descriptions based on pictures.	Travel brochures.
7 – Visual grammar	Students will explore visual features used in travel brochures and advertising, and how these are manipulated to affect the viewer. Students then use this knowledge to create their own travel brochure.	Selection of travel advertising images Travel brochures SMARTboard
8 – Research and creation of animation	Complete and synthesise research on one place and its significance to Australia and Australians into an animated video using the resource found at http://www.xtranormal.com/ using an in-depth knowledge of multimodal literacies.	Books Computers
9 – Wiki work	Students will be provided time in this session to work with their partner on their wiki site. It will be an opportunity for the students to use the teacher’s knowledge to answer any questions they may have. It will also be a time for the teacher to make observations for formative assessment.	Computers Library books
10 – Presentations	Peer assessment of projects	SMARTboard

The lessons have been deliberately sequenced to form a logical continuum of learning in this unit. Moving from the introductory lessons where the theme of travel around Australia’s significant places is discussed through texts in a familiar multimodal format, the students progress through a layering of instruction in various literacies. By beginning with using multimodal texts such as videos and websites at the macro level before analysis of individual modes at a micro level such as written and visual grammar, the students become familiar with the topics in a contextualised manner. Each of the lessons produces materials that will be incorporated into the wiki being constructed as the final rich task. Building towards this final outcome requires transparency of expectations, so the scaffolding to assist students do this is included in the early part of the unit. The lessons explicitly teaching written and visual grammar are towards the end of the unit, directly before the final two lessons for working on producing the resource. This allows students to undertake the construction of the rich task with the relevant contributing modes fresh in their memories. The final lesson in the sequence ties the whole unit together, culminating in a sharing session incorporating peer assessment using a rubric.